Pictures in the Park

Hubby is teaching in the woods this week and being more hard core than Bear Grills, so it's just the dog and me. Due to crappy rainy weather, Otto and I spent yesterday lounging on the couch watching Sweeney Todd and several episodes of Friday Night Lights. FNL was a college favorite, and watching it has brought back great memories of times with awesome friends. (You know who you are). :)
Today was a 180 degree turn from yesterday's laziness. Thanks to motivation from the sunshine and moderate temperature, I took Otto for a walk to a nearby park after church. I took hubby's Canon Rebel along to take some pictures. A word of advice: don't attempt to take decent pictures while holding a leash that is attached to a hyper Weimaraner. Otto likes to keep my life frustrating interesting. The photos turned out less than professional, but it was still fun. After our walk, I mowed the lawn, did a 100 Workout, and took Otto for a run. To make the day even better, I had phone calls from my parents and father-in-law. I even got to FaceTime with my brother, sister-in-law, and silly niece, Nicole. She was happy to show off for me on her new slide and tell me all of the animal sounds she knows. She's only 16 months old. She's a little smarty pants. :) I feel good about today. A phone call from Hubby would be icing on the cake. How about 1 little bar of service, Verizon?!

Here's that 100 Workout, if you're interested:

100 jumping jacks

90 sit ups

80 squats

70 leg lifts

60 jumping jacks 

50 sit ups 

40 squats

30 leg lifts

20 jumping jacks

Run for 10 minutes

Weekends with Friends

Our Portland trip was a blast! We had such a great time celebrating Cassady's graduation with her family and friends. And, our gracious hosts, Lizzy and Ray, spent the day with us on Saturday touring the city. I would love to share tons of pictures with you, but unfortunately I'm a total failure at capturing great moments. I like to think that is because I'm too busy enjoying them! Thank goodness for iPhones and Instagram, or I would never take a picture of anything! Here are a few Instagram faves of the trip taken by Hubby and me. 

No trip to Portland is complete without a Voodoo Doughnut stop.

The weather was beautiful, and the drive home on Sunday was picturesque (until we hit the Washington border). I swear that the scenery became instantly boring the second we passed from Oregon into Washington.

The following weekend was just as awesome as the Portland trip weekend. Hubby rented an Air Force cabin a couple hours north of us so we could spend the weekend with our group of Spokane friends. One of these friends is moving back to California in a couple of weeks, :( so this trip was kind of a farewell party. The weekend was full of relaxing, eating a lot of non-paleo camp food (including s'mores, of course), hiking, shooting guns, and fellowshipping with friends. By the way, Otto was in Weimaraner heaven up there. I think he's still recovering from all of the running.

"Hey guys, look what I found!"
Otto's new favorite chew toy.

Triple Threat

Today, I'm going to attempt to blog about a few completely unrelated subjects in one post. Cool? First subject: Otto, the escape artist. On Friday evening, Hubby and I came home from the gym and were greeted at the door by our mischievous pup. This would be wonderful if we trusted Otto to have free reign of the house. We do not. He managed to escape from his crate by opening the zipper that he had previously weakened by chewing some of the teeth off. The damage was minimal. We actually expected much worse for his first home alone experience. He chewed the corners of a couple books, but they're still readable. Unfortunately, one was Catching Fire (you Hunger Games fans know how upsetting that is)! He also got ahold of my running gloves, one of hubby's shoes, and his leash. Luckily nothing was damaged beyond repair. When we left for church this morning, we barricaded his crate against the wall with the couch so he wouldn't be able to get out, even if he opened the damaged zipper. That didn't stop Houdini Dog. He somehow opened the undamaged side zipper. Otto made himself comfortable on the couch and chewed the crap out of his retractable leash. At least we know he's a smart dog, even if he's destructive. On a good note, Otto's eye seems to be healing well from his "puppy tacks." It's a good thing he's not trying to scratch it because, you guessed it, he destroyed the second cone we got him by running into the stone wall. Smooth, Otto.

Second subject: Zone Paleo. This section is probably only interesting to those who care about diets and nutrition. If that's not you, skip this paragraph. ;) As I've previously shared, hubby and I have been "following" a Paleo-ish diet for the past several weeks. I was hoping that my general avoidance of grains and dairy would help me shed some "I ate too much junk over the holidays" body fat. I was also hoping this high protein diet would boost my strength and overall health. What I've actually found is that I've gained a few pounds! Now I know the whole "muscle weighs more than fat" saying. But, my jeans aren't just tight from more muscle. I have been getting stronger, though! Friday, I dead lifted 160 lbs. and bench pressed 90 lbs. That may not seem like much, but I'm only 5'3", and they were both pr's!

Paleo has been great for helping me eat more protein and produce while greatly reducing the amount of grains and dairy in my diet. The piece that I've been missing is portion control. I think my biggest Paleo error was that I was eating lots of sweet fruit and nuts, which are at the top of the Paleo food pyramid. So, I decided to combine Paleo with the Zone diet. I'm not the first to think of this. Many Crossfitters eat a Zone Paleo diet because it's better portion control than just eating any foods that are considered Paleo. Zone is based on the idea that you should eat the macronutrients of protein, carbohydrates, and fat in a 40:30:30 ratio. What I love about Zone is that it lists foods and portion sizes that you should be eating and ranks them from best choices to worst. If you are looking to improve your eating habits and/or lose a few pounds, I highly recommend checking out this website. Also, Zone may be more appealing to you because it does not require you to completely eliminate dairy and grains. Something that blew my mind: 10 cups of raw spinach has the carbohydrate equivalent of 1/3 of a banana! Needless to say, I've been eating a lot more spinach and a lot fewer bananas.

Third subject: We got a motorcycle! It's a '92 Yamaha FZR 1000. It's a sport bike, so maybe it's not as cool as a Harley. But, we'll have fun with it, (safely, of course) and it will save us some gas money when Hubby takes it to work instead of the gas guzzling Bronco. Pictures and updates to follow as soon as we see some of that beautiful weather in Spokane that everyone else in the country has been enjoying! Share the love, Midwest!

Spring is in the Air!

Lord, thank you for this beautiful day!

I don't think I was even aware of how badly my mind, body, and spirit needed sunshine and mild temperatures! It's gorgeous out today, and I've been taking advantage of this awesome weather. Hubby and I started the day with our favorite paleo breakfast, paleo pancakes. I add a splash of vanilla and some cinnamon. They are as easy as the boxed variety, but grain and dairy free! Plus, we like them even better. Make them. Eat them. Love them. You won't be sorry!

I took Otto for a sunny walk/run around our neighborhood and to a small nearby park. While running through the park, we came across a pit bull mix without a human. Otto and said pit bull had a grand old time jumping on and sniffing each other. Otto was definitely doing the majority of the jumping. After about a minute or so of this puppy play, I was ready to resume our run. I tugged Otto away so we could continue. Guess who followed? I couldn't ditch the wandering dog! He kept jogging behind us despite my best efforts to get rid of him several times with a stern "go home!" He followed us right to our door, which is at least 1/2 mile from where he found us. Hopefully the friendly guy made it home safely!

By the way, Otto has had that cone on his head for less than a week because of his "puppy tacks" to fix an issue with his left eyelid. Yes, it is currently held together with an obscene amount of duct tape. He's destructive, to say the least.

Between jumbo loads of laundry (it really piles up around here) and dinner prep, we've also been out to do some yard work. Ok, I did yard work while Otto chewed sticks.

How else can I take advantage of this day? I'm hoping this afternoon's crossfit workout has a running component! I'd like to be inside as little as possible. Let's have some more days like this one!

How do you make the most of a beautiful day in early March?

Puppy Love

Hubby called me from work on Tuesday and told me that he had found a puppy for us! We'd talked about what breeds we like and had done some research, but I had no idea how quickly we would go from talking about a puppy to bringing one home. We decided that we would really like a Weimaraner because they're known for being active, intelligent, and very devoted to their owners. Hubby contacted the breeder, and we drove an hour west of the city on Wednesday to pick out our own puppy! Otto Von Zipper is a big beautiful boy. After picking him up, we drove to the Idaho border to pick up his sof-krate2. Hubby found a great deal on this brand new collapsable crate on Craig's List. We also spent a small fortune at Petsmart on all of the puppy essentials. We literally had nothing for a puppy except a raccoon chew toy that we had received with a shower gift. Said squeaky toy just so happens to be his fave. He's already brought us lots of laughter, snuggles, and frustration. Those of you who have trained a puppy know what I'm talking about. Thank goodness for hard floors.